The wind whistled cooly through my fur as I sat upon a rock, looking down at the clan of cats moving about their dens, conversing with each other, laughing, smiling, yelling, some sparing me a glance.
I had woken up an hour earlier and had been unsure of what to do in this new clan. I didn't know what I could do, where I could go, or what was expected of me as a new arrival. So I settled with laying on a large rock that covered most of the top of my den. I had hoped to sunbathe in the sun's warmth once sunrise came, heating up the rock I lay on and making for a lovely start to the day. But unfortunately the sun might as well have never risen, because all morning it stayed hidden behind the clouds, making for a gloomy and cold start. But I continued to lay on the rock, watching the other cats go about their day, hoping immaturely, that the sun would suddenly be clear of the clouds, and the clouds would disappear altogether, along with the chilly winds, and by the time I had to get up, I'd have already enjoyed hours of the warm sun on my pelt.
But to me dismay, someone called my name from down in the field below. It was a cat, sitting in the in the grass. The field below was covered in grass so bright and green that I knew, on a warm sunny day, it would be a delight just to look at it. But for now, it was far below its obvious potential, as shadows were cast over it and the dreary darkness that hung in the air made it lose its appeal. Just like all the rest of the grass, greyish green and covered in due.
The only things in the field below was dens, cats and the scattered rocks or things the cats were holding. It made it quite easy to see everything that was happening in the field at once when you were up on a hill like I was. It made for a nice view, on top of the fact that it meant I could easily spot the cat who called my name. A tabby cat, greyish ginger in colour, with black tabby patterns, sitting among the duey grass.

I stood up grudgingly, wishing I could've relaxed a bit longer. As I stretched and padded down the slightly damp grass, I thought about how much the weather influenced your mood. I wished winter would keep its distance, and the bright happy days of summer would return.

As I neared the cat sitting among the grass, I noticed some details that I couldn't make out up on my rock. This tabby that had called me was a young male, a year and seven months old. He looked serious and very mature, although he was clearly young and quite small, I was wondering if I'd be larger than him in a few months.
"Hi" I said, "you called?"
The cat sighed tiredly as if I had just spurted nonsense. "I am aware."
I shrugged awkwardly at this, getting the instant impression that he wasn't the friendliest cat in the Peace Clan.
What stood out to me only slightly more than this fact was his eyes, a beautiful mix of green, fading into yellow on the edges, reminding me strongly of a not yet ripe lemon.

"Alright, let me get something straight." he started, a clear edge in his tone. I blinked at him in some surprise. He sounded like he really didn't want to be here, his tone reminding me of a strict father who has no time, getting ready to tell me I'm grounded.
"Mistress sent me to be your guide, introduce you to the territory, cats and jobs. So please, don't make me repeat anything I showed or told you already. I don't have all day and frankly I'm not interested in strolling in the park with you, so listen more, talk less, then we can both continue on with our days, got it?"
Resisting the urge to frown or ask why he was so grumpy, I decided to nod and follow his lead. After all, I was lucky to be here, the last thing I wanted was to get into an argument my first morning here, or even worse, this grumpy tabby could turn out to be someone important or well liked here, then I'd be at risk of being banished for picking a fight with him.

Looking satisfied that I didn't protest or complain, the lemon eyed tabby began to walk. A few paces behind him, he led me out of the cluster of dens and into slightly higher, less stepped on grass.
We walked in awkward silence for a few minutes. Just as I started to wonder if he was actually leading me somewhere, I saw the large walls I had passed through yesterday when I first entered the territory and met Gold, Butter and Mustard for the first time. The wall stretched out as far as the eyes could see, curving ever so slightly as it went. This gave me the idea that it probably made a circle around the entirety of the Peace Clan. As we got closer I noticed it was made of smaller rocks, the biggest of them I guessed would take three cats to carry. All the rocks had been stacked on top of each other, making this wall, too high to climb. All the rocks were covered in moss, closing in the gapes in the rocks and making the surface slippery and impossible to grip. There were vines growing down from the top of the wall to about halfway. My guess was that the vines would grow and climb from trees across the top of the wall and climbing down. As I looked at the ground in front of the wall I noticed tiny bits of vines coming out of the grass and clinging onto the rocks.
If the vines were left alone they'd probably have covered the whole wall years ago, but the problem with that was it would make it easier to climb, as the vines have better grip than the slippery moss.
The cats here would obviously wrip the vines off once they were in reach of even the tallest cat here, wriping off the most they could of the vine. That was probably why the bottom half was clear of vines, though the top half was near impossible to reach and therefore there was no need to be rid of the vines.

"Here's what we call the Wall" said the lemon eyed cat, snapping me out if my daze. "the Wall is the whole thing, it circles  around our whole territory. It's the scouts jobs to circle the wall daily, looking for any sign of anything unusual or unwanted around the walls." he said.
"oh I see, like what?" I asked curiously.
"like an attempt at someone climbing the walls, or anything really, be creative." he said, clearly thinking my question was a dumb one.

I rolled my eyes. "who's the scouts?"
He glanced at me "I was told you already met them" he said stubbornly.
Once again suppressing my anger, I replied, "I met a lot of people yesterday."
He slit his eyes impatiently. "Dandalion, Pineapple and Honey. Pineapples the lead scout."
Oh. So that's what they were doing. Me and Uncle SmokeTail must've already been near enough to the Wall that the scouts picked up our scent or heard us. I wondered if that was how they found us when we were still a decent distance from the Wall, but I quickly decided we were too far for that to have happened, unless we were being that obnoxiously loud, or we were carrying such a strong scent.
I mentally shrugged, forget it. It just matters that we got here.

"oi new girl" the lemon eyed cat said with a slight growl in his voice. "don't zone out on me won't you?" I realised now I'd been slowing down, staring up at the sky as I walked, busy in thought. "Right, sorry. My fault." I said, quickly picking up the pace until I was only a few steps behind him.
"this is the Gate." he said now, looking at the wall. I couldn't see anything different about that specific part of the wall compared with the rest, the only reason I didn't wonder why that specific spot was called the 'Gate' while the rest was called the 'Wall', was because I'd passed through the Gate just yesterday.
It looked just like the rest of the wall, but actually, there was a space there, just wide enough for two cats to walk through shoulder to shoulder and it was around a metre and a half high. In this little space in the huge wall, the long grass that grew on either side would mask the entrance.

April Bluebird/BlueWhiskers1.
BlueWhiskers 2; Awakening Shadows.
Chapter 15
21.Nov.2021
1514 words.